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What are some good resources for noobs trying to learn how to use a terminal?

With Linux you want to become comfortable with gradually understanding more and more about your system. You have unlimited power, but that requires unlimited knowledge.

So, take one step at a time. Take a crack at understanding one thing that you were wondering about at any time. Take notes, because you will forget the exact commands/invocations when you get back to it half a year or more later again.

A good starting point is understanding your file system layout. What were all these root folders (/home, /var, /etc and friends) meant for? What can I find in there?
A good next logical step would be to understand how your services/daemons are started, configured, and monitored (likely systemd but there are others too).

There are many good youtubers with various series about settling into Linux that go over the above and much, much more. So remember to focus on one thing only or you'll end up watching content for hours without being able to recall anything.

I personally like much of distrotube's stuff, bread on penguins also has awesome content, a lot of which points to further resources. Luke Smith has more advanced, self-rolled, and philosophical stuff. Mental Outlaw's linux vids also tend to be pretty good at pointing you towards more resources.

Furthermore, I would recommend getting comfortable with understanding how to search for solutions yourself. I think bread had an excellent video along those lines, but I am unable to find the exact video right now.
Prepare to get comfy with man and taking your time to read carefully. tldr is a nice shortcut for those cases where you just want to see some flags to jog your memory.
Also, the Arch wiki is an excellent resource. Even when not using Arch btw.

Take notes. Lots of them. And know where to find and search through them.

This was great! Covered all my main points, or at least helped me figure out where I need to go from here! Thanks so much for taking the time!

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LLMs are pretty good about understanding the semantics of Linux utilities. If you get stuck with how to accmplish a task in particular, asking chatgpt isn't a bad place to start - I think of it as an improved rubber duck. (It's probably relying on training from the useful stack overflow articles so we should continue using that resource as well.)

Have some patience and it will be a rewarding experience. Starting with Arch is certainly a choice!

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You're very welcome. Congrats on switching over!

It's a long journey and I'm not sure it ever ends... but for me it's been totally worth it.

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12 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 17h

Excellent tips right here

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